| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question? There are persons,
are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus
procure those things of which they stand in need?
ERYXIAS: There are.
SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange
for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and
silver?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then if they procure by this means what they want for the
purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life? For do we not say
that silver is useful because it enables us to supply our bodily needs?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: ``Ulrica,'' said Cedric, softened by this appeal,
``hast thou borne up and endured to live through
so much guilt and so much misery, and wilt thou
now yield to despair when thine eyes are opened to
thy crimes, and when repentance were thy fitter
occupation?''
``Cedric,'' answered Ulrica, ``thou little knowest
the human heart. To act as I have acted, to
think as I have thought, requires the maddening
love of pleasure, mingled with the keen appetite of
revenge, the proud consciousness of power; droughts
Ivanhoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: The serious nature of what I was undertaking filled me at first with
terror. Marriage is a matter concerning the whole of life, whilst love
aims only at pleasure. On the other hand, marriage will remain when
pleasures have vanished, and it is the source of interests far more
precious than those of the man and woman entering on the alliance.
Might it not therefore be that the only requisite for a happy marriage
was friendship--a friendship which, for the sake of these advantages,
would shut its eyes to many of the imperfections of humanity? Now
there was no obstacle to the existence of friendship between myself
and Louis de l'Estorade. Having renounced all idea of finding in
marriage those transports of love on which our minds used so often,
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